When trouble occurring in a FOUP opener is to be coped with and maintenance such as exchanging the component is to be performed, the operator must access the inside of the port door.
With a conventional FOUP opener, when accessing the interior of the opener, due to the structure, generally, the FOUP opener itself is removed from a mini-environment first, or if the FOUP opener is not to be removed, the operator enters the mini-environment (Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-220001). The mini-environment serves as a relay pace which accommodates a wafer handling robot and the like and from which a wafer in the FOUP is transferred to a semiconductor processing apparatus.
The structure of a conventional port door 100 in a FOUP opener as disclosed in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 11-220001 usually comprises a port door front member 101 and rear panel 102 (sheet metal panel) formed by press working, as shown in FIG. 1. The port door front member 101 is attached with latch keys (not shown) and has latch key holes 103 from which the key portions project.
In the conventional port door 100 described above, when the operator is to access the inside of the port door 100, he or she cannot do so from the front surface of the port door 100. More specifically, when the operator tries to remove the port door front member 101, the latch keys interfere with the latch key holes 103 and vacuum pads 24 interfere with vacuum pipe holes serving for holding, so the port door front member 101 cannot be removed from the FOUP opener. To merely enlarge the latch key holes 103 and the vacuum pipe holes is not sufficient to prevent interference. If the latch key holes 103 and the vacuum pipe holes are enlarged, the holes must be closed from the rear side in order to prevent dust from flowing from the inside of the port door to enter the mini-environment. Particularly, with press working, it is difficult to form such a structure, and even if it is possible, it may lead to very high costs.
When the operator is to cope with a trouble of and to maintain a driving mechanism or the like in the conventional port door 100, first, the FOUP opener itself must be temporarily extracted from the mini-environment to extract the rear panel 102, as in patent reference 1. This operation requires hard work. If the FOUP opener itself is extracted from the mini-environment, a large opening is left in the mini-environment, and the clean internal environment is exposed to pollution. Even if the FOUP opener is not to be removed, the operator may enter the mini-environment to also pollute the clean internal environment. Even if the FOUP opener is mounted on the mini-environment again after the process, it takes certain time to restore the interior of the mini-environment to a clean environment. After the FOUP opener is attached to the mini-environment, adjustment is required to set the FOUP opener to the original position.